The Sales Feed Show
How to Sell Like You with Jeff Bajorek
Wed May 24 2023Description
This episode explores the importance of selling like yourself, trusting your instincts, playing to your strengths, embracing vulnerability, and creating a supportive environment in sales. It highlights the value of video in the sales process, the strengths of introverted salespeople, and the role of sales leadership in fostering experimentation and learning. The episode also emphasizes the significance of understanding customer needs and having vulnerable conversations with them to strengthen relationships and improve sales performance.
Insights
Selling authentically
To be successful in sales, it is crucial to sell like yourself and trust your instincts. Trying to imitate others or wear someone else's suit will not lead to success.
Playing to your strengths
Knowing your own strengths and leveraging them in sales conversations can help control the conversation without dominating it. Different approaches may be necessary depending on the type of sale.
Embracing vulnerability
Being comfortable with vulnerability is key to unlocking potential and achieving success in sales. It involves taking risks and being willing to fail.
Creating a supportive environment
Sales leaders should create an environment that supports and encourages vulnerability in salespeople. This includes enabling experimentation, providing feedback, and fostering collaboration.
Understanding customer needs
Having vulnerable conversations with your best customers can strengthen relationships and provide valuable insights for improving sales performance. Asking specific questions about their buying decisions and introducing them to others can lead to further business opportunities.
Fostering experimentation and learning
Sales leadership should create an environment that allows for experimentation and learning. This involves enabling sales teams to try new approaches, personalized scripts, and deep understanding of the sales process.
Chapters
- Selling like yourself
- Trusting yourself and being authentic
- Playing to your strengths and embracing vulnerability
- Video, introversion, and creating a supportive environment
- Introversion, vulnerability, and sales leadership
- Creating an environment for experimentation and learning
- Trusting yourself and asking your best customers
Selling like yourself
00:00 - 06:24
- To be a top performer, you have to be both the numerator and the denominator, one of one.
- Rethinking the way you sell means selling like yourself.
- Sales Feed is a community that aims to help salespeople live a better life in sales.
- Jeff Bajorek is an avid golfer, whiskey lover, pitmaster, and sought-after sales trainer.
- Having two opportunities in your pipeline is important for sales success.
- The caddy on your bag can make a difference in your golf game.
- The best advice from a caddy was to hit putts with conviction.
- Golf is about focusing on one shot at a time and keeping it simple.
- In sales, remember the steps of your process and what you want to accomplish.
Trusting yourself and being authentic
11:54 - 18:34
- Selling like you means being authentic and trusting your instincts.
- Ignoring the voice in your head that knows what needs to be done is a mistake.
- Trying to imitate others in sales is like wearing someone else's suit - it doesn't fit well.
- Using your own words and ad-libbing in the moment is important.
- Trusting yourself leads to success, as proven by the speaker's experience of tripling revenue in a stagnant territory.
- Feeling unsure or wanting to do things differently is an opportunity for growth.
- Leaning into your strengths and being true to yourself is part of selling like you.
- The speaker, who leans towards introversion, adjusts his energy level when needed but doesn't try to be someone he's not.
Playing to your strengths and embracing vulnerability
18:11 - 24:19
- In a sales conversation, extroverts tend to dominate and ensure their points are heard.
- The speaker prefers creating a situation where the conversation comes to them and they can naturally share insights.
- This approach involves empathy, listening, and maintaining a good talk-to-listen ratio.
- The speaker uses their strengths to control the conversation without dominating it.
- Different approaches may be necessary depending on whether the sale is consultative or transactional.
- It's important to know one's own strengths and play to them.
- Everyone has a unique combination of skills, talents, experiences, and integrity.
- Trying something new or different is often necessary for growth and success.
- Embracing vulnerability is key in unlocking potential.
Video, introversion, and creating a supportive environment
23:53 - 30:50
- Video can bring more of your personality into the sales process
- Vidyard makes it easy to record and send video messages
- Sales golf is a game similar to Hangman
- Raj is the golfer and Jeff is his caddy in this game
- Hole number one has an eight-letter word, clue is 'people don't get into sales to be this'
- Raj guesses the letter 'I' and 'M', two strokes on the board
- 'Mediocre' is the word for hole number one, they birdie it
- Hole number two has a ten-letter word, clue is 'many top performing sales reps are blank'
- Raj uses a V wedge and lands on the fairway, V is the sixth letter
- 'T' is chosen as the next letter, two T's in the word at positions three and nine
Introversion, vulnerability, and sales leadership
30:25 - 37:11
- Many top sales performing sales reps are introverts.
- Being an introvert can be a strength for salespeople.
- To sell like yourself, you must be comfortable with being vulnerable.
- Vulnerability is about being willing to take risks and potentially fail in order to achieve success.
- Sales leaders should create an environment that supports and encourages vulnerability in salespeople.
Creating an environment for experimentation and learning
36:49 - 43:13
- Sales leadership needs to create an environment that allows for experimentation and learning.
- Great leaders enable their sales teams to try new approaches and find what works best for them.
- Selling is not a manual to be followed, but a series of problems to be solved.
- Scripts are helpful frameworks, but they should be personalized and understood deeply.
- Collaboration and feedback between colleagues can enhance the learning process in sales.
- Being present and mindful during the sales process is crucial for success.
- Product knowledge is not the most important factor in selling; understanding the mechanics of the sales process is key.
Trusting yourself and asking your best customers
42:54 - 46:32
- The type of middle product marketing and head of product marketing should be replaced with problem marketing.
- Product marketers should not be writing sales scripts and cadences.
- To be better than 95% of other sellers, trust yourself and ask your five best customers five questions:
- Why did they buy from you the first time?
- Why do they continue doing business with you?
- Do they know anybody else who might appreciate the same value?
- Would they mind introducing you to others?
- Having a vulnerable conversation with your best customers helps strengthen relationships and learn what to double down on or do less of.
- Most sales reps have not had this conversation with their best customers. Trust yourself and go do it.